added screening: ‘Coraline’

Ooh! Jealous! I'm really psyched for this. I loved the book (just "re-read" it by listening to the audiobook recently. Neil Gaiman is amazing at doing live reads as well), and the trailers I've seen for the movie so far look excellent.

The book is also really excellent for having a girl protagonist without that being it's raison d'etre, either. No one tells her she can't do stuff because she's a girl, she doesn't have to show some dumb boy that girls rule and can do anything boys can do. She's just a girl, and she's clever, and brave, and awesome. I think that's really cool, and a very good thing.

Man I love Gaiman's work, but I would not let a young child get within fifty meters of this. The source material is easily the most disturbing 'kids' book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Apparently, the movie has a PG rating. If they have captured the book in any way (and the trailer looks like they have) this movie is going to give every 8-10 year old in North America nightmares for a week.

I just gave this to my 8yr old nephew for Christmas. I hope he reads it instead of just watching the movie. Henry Selick started this film before the book was finished, so there will be things in the book that aren't in the movie and vice-versa.

The promo folks did a very cool thing to generate buzz for the film.

C. David, are you sure about that? Coraline was published back in 2002. I know that Selick talks about meeting Gaiman before Coraline was finished, but it seems to have been very close to being done then (say 2000-2001), and the actual work of the movie seems not to have begun until 2005 or thereabouts.

And now I found Gaiman's actual blog post that gives the chronology:

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/09/film-news-and-stuff.asp

So Selick had read Coraline about a year before it was published (probably when it was basically done but being edited), but didn't really get working on the film until 2004, when the option was exercised.